Results 39,941-39,960 of 46,267 for speaker:Simon Harris

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Other Questions: Hospital Waiting Lists (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Brassil for raising this important matter with me. He has brought it to my attention personally as well. As I have said to some of the Deputy's colleagues, a key challenge for the health services is to continue to ensure timely access to them while at the same time recognising that there is a constant increased demand on them. In that regard, I have been assured that the HSE...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Other Questions: Hospital Waiting Lists (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Moynihan who made me aware of the very difficult and serious case of somebody's surgery, which I have had investigated. The very honest answer to the question is that we have a health system which lost 12,000 staff during the years of economic recession in the country and we have put back 6,000 of 12,000 staff but we need not pat ourselves on the back because we need at least...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Other Questions: Hospital Waiting Lists (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: According to NTPF data, 60% of patients wait for less than six months for the required outpatient appointment or inpatient day case procedure. At present, 91% of patients wait less than the maximum waiting time of 15 months for inpatient or day case procedures and 92% wait less than 15 months for outpatient appointments. We need to continue to do better but we need to not tie ourselves up...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Other Questions: Hospital Waiting Lists (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. I understand from data provided by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, that at the end of June 2016 some 3,859 patients were waiting for gynaecology outpatient appointments and 458 were waiting for inpatient or day case gynaecology procedures at Cork University Hospital. While these figures represent a welcome reduction on...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Other Questions: Hospital Waiting Lists (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy and take his point. It is cold comfort to people on waiting lists today to hear that the waiting list for this very procedure has fallen significantly in that hospital, given 4,622 people were waiting for this outpatient procedure in Cork University Hospital in June of last year and this is now down to 3,859. The figure is still much too high but it is a reduction, and I...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Other Questions: Hospital Waiting Lists (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I take very seriously the points made by the Deputy. It is very serious for people awaiting these procedures and people are waiting too long. This is why we need a concerted effort to tackle waiting lists and why all of us in this House need to work together in the Estimates process to make sure we adequately resource our health service and the NTPF, as well as our hospitals, to address...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Other Questions: Hospital Waiting Lists (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for introducing the question. I have been made aware by him that the number of patients waiting over a year for an outpatient appointment in Cork University Hospital has increased since the end of last year. However, these increases must be seen in the context of the overall increased demand for care and increased overall activity and productivity in our health system....

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Charitable and Voluntary Organisations (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: While I am endeavouring to fill the Deputy with confidence, we must be careful not to fill Irish people with a lack of confidence in some of the best service providers we have in this country in the delivery of health care. Some of the section 38 organisations, in fact many of them, are operating to the highest governance standards-----

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Charitable and Voluntary Organisations (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: -----and are delivering vital health services which, frankly, were never delivered by the State. If they were not there, God knows in what type of situation vulnerable people in this country would have found themselves. What we must do is weed out the bad apples. We must find the people who are not living within the rules. That is the reason we have an annual compliance statement. What...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Hospital Groups (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: As I have stated previously, I intend to continue to implement hospital groups structures but on an administrative basis. The reason is that I asked the House to establish an Oireachtas all-party committee to develop a single long-term vision for health care over a ten year period. It is important that those discussions are progressed before I give further consideration to the issue of...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Hospital Groups (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I am accountable to the House for the decisions I have made during my time as Minister for Health. That is what I was endeavouring to do in my initial response to the question, by outlining my philosophy and principal objective in how I intend to populate the hospital group boards which are not currently populated. I assure the House that nobody will sit on a hospital group board or be...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Hospital Groups (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I take the Deputy's point but I reiterate my point that these appointments were made for a 24-month period. We did not have a scenario whereby people were sanctioned for the rest of their career. These appointments were made initially for 24 months, considering what the then Government decided was the particular and extraordinary circumstance of trying to get these hospital groups up and...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Charitable and Voluntary Organisations (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I congratulate the Deputy on his election as Vice Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts. I have previously served on that fine body and know that the Deputy will have an interesting day on Friday. I have read the same documentation he has read on a certain organisation. It is very disturbing and disgusting in parts. I have received a breakdown of the funding received by the 40...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Charitable and Voluntary Organisations (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I agree with the Deputy. I sat on the Committee of Public Accounts when we discussed this issue back, I think, in 2013. I, like most people on both sides of the House, was repulsed by the carry-on. A number of measures have been implemented in terms of the charity regulator and with new structures in the HSE, but clearly more needs to be done. I do not want and I know no Member of this...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Charitable and Voluntary Organisations (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Browne for this important and timely question in light of a number of public concerns that have been raised in respect of organisations funded by the Health Service Executive. I wish to inform the Deputy and the House, as the Tánaiste did some moments ago, that a review of all section 38 providers is being conducted by external consultants. This review is now under...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Charitable and Voluntary Organisations (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: I too am very concerned by what I am seeing in St. John of God's. That is why an investigation is now under way by the HSE in respect of those payments. I have been clear, the HSE has been clear and, today, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has been clear in stating that if any payments have been made above and beyond the allowable level of payments, then those payments must be...

Order of Business (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: Here is Brendan to save the day for us.

Business of Dáil (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: Correct, and we need it.

Leaders' Questions (Resumed) (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: For poetry.

Leaders' Questions (12 Jul 2016)

Simon Harris: There is only the RCSI.